Stone Age

When the successor asked for something more “serious,” I brought out Stone Age: the grandfather of modern worker-placement games. And yes, habemus ludum. It is one of those games that does not need any fanfare to set the mood; you sit down, look at it, and understand that there is a complete game here, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Its core is worker placement: players place their workers among the available options on the board and try to make the best use of their actions. The basic idea is simple and clear, so even a nine-year-old can grasp it without getting lost in unnecessary explanations.

Interaction comes from competing over those options and from who can organize their workers more effectively. It is not merely a quiet introductory lesson in the genre: you can play it properly competitively and, if all goes well, dish out a little pain at the end.

Obviously, its age shows. In my eyes, which do not suffer from retro-lust, it cannot stand beside the more modern entries in the genre. But that does not cancel out the obvious: it is a very nice game, ideal for showing someone why worker-placement games became such a hit. Good stuff—and the reprint of the Greek edition has, if I remember correctly, a fairly decent price too.